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in honor of david letterman

heelmanwilm

Hall of Famer
May 26, 2005
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Wilmington NC
I'll be watching tonight although i havent for many years. When he first came on he was so fresh and cutting edge.

Top ten op's to never ever post on ootb

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7. islam: the religion of peace
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And the number one op to never ever post on ootb

POLL: Fav cereal?
 
I always liked Letterman better than anyone, though Fallon is fantastic. Letterman is somewhat nostalgic for me because I was a night owl like my father and I remember watching it with him back in the day.
 
I don't love Letterman and I don't hate him. I honestly don't see what all the fuss is about. Was he really that instrumental to late night TV.

He's certainly no Johnny Carson.
 
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I don't, and never have, seen the value in watching late night TV. Seems dumb. Drink a beer, call a chick, or go to bed. Why watch that stuff?
 
I always thought Leno was a hundred times more entertaining than Letterman. I really miss Jay but couldn't care less about Letterman being gone.
 
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I don't love Letterman and I don't hate him. I honestly don't see what all the fuss is about. Was he really that instrumental to late night TV.

He's certainly no Johnny Carson.
I loved Johnny Carson. He was an absolute classic. To me, Letterman was a lot funnier than Leno, but that's just a matter of preference.

As far as why Letterman mattered, here's an excellent tl;dr explanation. The bottom line was he was irreverent before irreverence was cool and basically made fun of celebrity. That's what I loved about him, although admittedly I haven't watched in years. A good summary from the link:

After over 20 years on CBS, the media-driven silliness of the “Late Night Wars” and the slow dissipation of his adventurous spirit, it can be hard to remember how revolutionary David Letterman was in the 1980s. Before The Simpsons and Seinfeld rewrote the rules of network comedy, before irony briefly consumed all culture and every character on TV became a smart-ass, David Letterman both celebrated and mocked the entire concept of television. With his satisfied smirk, his absurd skits and the constant admission that everything done on his show was basically a ridiculous waste of time, Letterman destroyed TV while making it better and smarter. He was the first TV host of the post-modern age, the first to respond to the societal rot of the ’70s and the black comedy of the Reagan Revolution with the appropriate sense of weariness and oblivion.
 
Personally I liked Leno but I don't like political comedy (of any kind - its boring and too easy to do) and that's what leno did every single night.

Best Letterman show I ever saw was in the 1980s. He went to a mall and asked people what they did "during the earthquake" that morning when there was no earthquake that morning. It was amazing that some people not only lied about "what they did" but that they were very detailed and convincing
 
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